208 John Hogg, Esq., on the Geography and 
Bourka, or “ Cape Veil,”’ is so termed by the Arabs from 
being conspicuously white with a chalky limestone. The 
same sort of cha/k appears before, just above the ground, 
near Noweibia, at the base of the moderately-high mountains, 
themselves composed of greenstone and granite rocks. 
Noweibia (a diminutive Arabie word) signifies “ springing 
up” like a fountain ; here also is water, but brackish, as it is 
in the same cretaceous formation as along the coast of the Gulf 
of Suez. Some date plantations are met with, and much 
charcoal made from the acacia trees, is exported to Cairo. 
Wadi Boszeyra of Burckhardt, the El Sadeh of Robinson, 
is of excellent grey granite, which the Arabs cut into stones 
for their handmills. This eastern granitic range presents 
very precipitous cliffs, about 800 feet high, from which a bank 
of gravel slopes down to the sea-shore ; Dr Robinson more mi- 
nutely particularises the cliffs in Wadi-el-Sadeh as affording 
alternations of granite and greenstone, occasionally capped 
with sandstone. According to thattraveller, themountainsnear 
the upper or western part of Wadi-el-Sal are chiefly green- 
stone, with some slate and veins of porphyry. Crossing the 
sandy plain, part of El] Ramleh, which reaches to the foot of 
Gebel-el-Tyh, in the approach to Hadhera, that portion of 
those mountains is composed of sandstone strata, with layers 
of limestone towards its top. But the eastern ramifications 
of the south branch of Gebel-el-Tyh, beyond Hadhera, sink 
down into precipitous isolated hills and masses of sandstone 
rocks which have been rent to the bottom by narrow sandy 
valleys, or rather clefts. Then succeeds a plain of sand; and 
in Wadi Ghazaleh, leading eastwards into Wadi Wetir, the 
sides are perpendicular walls of sandstone, and very narrow. 
Next follow sandy plains, and rugged sandstone hills; and, 
indeed, at the north-west base of Gebel Samghy, the rocks 
exhibit sandstone, greenstone, and granite alternately. 
I will here add from Burckhardt a sketch of the same dis- 
trict. The west portion of Wadi-el-Sal consists of the lower 
ridges of the primitive mountains; on the top is granite, 
lower down greenstone (griins¢ein) and porphyry ; further on 
granite and porphyry cease, and the rock is solely green- 
stone, partaking of a slaty nature in many spots. Proceed- 
